The Political Center’s Lonely Now, Figures to Get More So

My latest Capital Journal column looks at the chances this year’s election will hollow out the political center even more:

One of the reasons it’s so tough to get things done in Washington these days is that the political center—the place where compromises are forged, and where practical results matter more than ideological divides—is such a lonely place.

Well, guess what? It figures to be even more lonely after this year’s congressional election. If you think Washington works badly now, it’s just possible the 2010 vote may well add to the capital’s polarization, and hence to its dysfunction.

This dynamic will be onfull display Tuesday as voters head to the polls in primaries in a few key states. In Arkansas, moderate Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln is threatened by a challenge from her party’s left in the person of Lt. Gov. Bill Halter. In Kentucky, tea-party hero Rand Paul could upend Republican establishment favorite Trey Grayson. In both cases, more moderate candidates could be swept out by forces from the ideological wings.

But the pattern is cutting a swath well beyond just a couple of states. On the Democratic side, some of the year’s most vulnerable incumbents are centrist Old Bulls, as well as a set of newer moderates who won in swing districts in the Democrats’ successful drive to take the House and deepen their hold on it in 2006 and 2008.

Meanwhile, on the Republican side, the tea-party movement is pushing Republicans to the right en masse. Even in places where tea party-styled candidates don’t win, they are likely to force more-traditional Republican candidates off center ground to survive.